This Washington Post poll was conducted by telephone Sept. 10 to 16, 2012, among a random sample of 1,152 adult residents of the Washington metro area, including users of both conventional and cellular phones. The results from the full survey have a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 3.5 percentage points. The error margin is five points for the sample of 707 employed adults. Sampling, data collection and tabulation by Social Science Research Solutions (SSRS) of Media, Pa.
The Washington metro area defined as the District of Columbia, Charles, Prince George’s and Montgomery counties in the state of Maryland and Alexandria, Arlington, Fairfax, Fairfax City, Falls Church, Loudoun, Manassas City, Manassas Park City, and Prince William County in the commonwealth of Virginia.